


Oh Night, it has been a long time

by TotemundTabu



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, mention of rape, mention of violence, mention of war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 12:48:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5497616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TotemundTabu/pseuds/TotemundTabu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Desert AU, Pseudo-Arabic setting | Rin is a defeated prince, captured by Haruka's father; about to be killed, Rin pleads for his younger sister's life, provoking Haruka's heart to be filled by awe and, in future, by love. But love is not enough when one of them is still officially a slave. | Mentions of sex, rape, war, violence | M for mature content and sex scenes | Slight OOC due to setting | Hope you will like it and merry Xmas *heart*</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oh Night, it has been a long time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oyasumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oyasumi/gifts).



**Oh Night, it has been a long time**

 

 

He remembered still how it felt: the scorching hot sand shaken by the wind, the golden sun burning on his skin, the dense taste of honeyed mint tea in his mouth, lingering on his tongue. It was an afternoon like many others before, an execution day like there had been since years, nothing had been special about this one.

His father looked straight ahead, as if nothing could bother to distract him. He stared at the horizon, at the amphitheatre crowded with men from all over the city, showing off their coloured drapes: gold and sapphire, the colours of their lineage since over five centuries.

They were cheering, clapping their hands, singing in joy.

It was a day of celebration and elation: the day peace had been regained and war ended, like a snake coming out from the warm dunes whose head got chopped off quickly and ruthlessly and then thrown to the goats.

Haruka turned to his mother, but she didn't look back at him. In her eyes, he recognized disgust, but couldn't decode it nor explain it.

What would there have been to be upset about on the day of victory?

“Is all of this necessary?”

Haruka was surprised. For his mother to speak so bluntly and to ask to the king without any formal excuse nor an ashamed expression surely meant she was firmly against it, but why? In the last three years of war, they had seen at least one execution every two days, between spies, traitors, captured generals; it was hardly any surprise.

“It is.” he responded, in a whispered firm order.

His father was the sword lowered over the snake, the stone that breaks the head of the hare, the sun and the moon that fight in the sky. His father never changed his mind.

A trumpet rang, full and round, shining of gold and copper under the sun. The prisoners entered in the amphitheatre, covered in dust, even blood, chains at their feet and hands.

Haruka knew no pity for them, because nobody knows what they had not been taught, and as his eyes looked at each of those bodies, he just found himself counting. Ten in total, so the high generals, the advisors and the heirs of the Kingdom Matsuoka.

Spotting the heirs was still hard, given the fact all of their clothes, for how ripped and stained, looked rich in silver and heavily decorated, but as the executioner took from the crowd a figure, pulling off their hood, doubt left the crowd.

The scarlet hair of the Matsuoka family.

They looked like dense blood, liquid and pouring, shimmering in the light of the full day.

Haruka was mesmerized: he had never seen such a beautiful colour.

It looked as nothing he knew.

“He is about your age... - his mother murmured, making sure the king couldn't hear, her voice sounded flat but she wouldn't have dared to speak so if the turmoil weren't sparkling in her veins – Would they have done this to you too, I wonder?”

Haruka fell silent for a moment, without raising his eyes from the boy, before replying with a dry “Maybe.” He was not offended nor hurt at the thought: that was war and his father had always prepared him for the notion, and yet there was something that disturbed him, like a grasp in his stomach, a whirlpool in his mind.

The Matsuoka prince bit the hand of the executioner as he pinched his face between two fingers to show him to the public, as a horse soon to be butchered. He gained a slap and he spit on the man.

“What a rebellious foal, recalcitrant as the mother.” the highest general mocked, scoffing next to his father.

He gave a dull and brief laugh.

“What had been of the mother?”

“She joined the army for dinner.” the general commented, smirking, and gaining an outraged glare from Haruka's mother.

“My dear husband, my sweet king, - she chirped – Is making a man lose his tongue between my powers?”

He frowned, while the general shivered, “Do you desire so?”

“Not yet. I just thought somebody needed to be reminded of it.” she spoke, softly, almost tenderly, and then turned, leaving the general frozen in horror and silence.

Haruka couldn't, though, shake away an heavy feeling pooling in his chest, as mugginess catching him. The prince was still struggling, trying to shout a prayer, which the executioner tried to choke out, putting a hand over and in his mouth.

“Let him speak. - the king claimed – If it's a curse, it will be fun for us all to drink over. If it's a threat, even more.”

His words got chocked on tears, the crowd fell silent, even if the executioner started to laugh.

“My sister! - he screamed – Spare my sister!”

Haruka felt the uneasiness burst and sadness fill his stomach, bitterly, burning.

Why would he plead for the sister and not himself? What would lead someone to such a pathetic show if not for their own good?

The boy fell on his knees and kept crying, sighs and sobs shaking him up to the spine. Only then Haruka realized he had probably not eaten since days, he could distinguish his ribs. Next to him, on the queue of people waiting for their turn, there was a small figure, the only one tinier than the Matsuoka prince. She rushed to her brother and started to wipe off his tears, whispering to him to calm him down.

The red of both their hair in the wind charged with sand looked truly like the blood that would have dropped from their necks.

He felt horrified, sick – plain sick, as if something had gotten inside him he couldn't digest.

He had seen hundreds of executions, it was his duty, and although he never enjoyed them, he also never felt as if this was in any way so wrong to make him physically about to vomit. It was just how things worked, how they were supposed to be.

“Please...”

The king turned to him. Before he was wearing a wide, victorious grin, a stern look, but as his eyes met his son’s, his expression became puzzled, bewildered.

Tears were streaming down the cheeks of the boy.

The Prince that never cried, not even as he came into the world, never once, was tearing up for the children of an enemy. His father stiffed, burned by that sight.

“Please, spare them.”

“You know it is not possible. If we granted mercy to everyone who begged, they would think we are weak and easy to riot against.”

“But we never do. - he objected, stubborn – Don't make them martyrs. Give them to make, make them our slaves for all their lives, if that pleases you more.”

The king mumbled, caressing his chin.

His glance fell again on the former prince Matsu, bowling his eyes out – sure not what one would expect from a royal leader – and the small girl. She would have grown up to be a surely beautiful woman, as her mother, and the boy too could have been …

“My people. - he spoke, his big voice echoing in the theatre without need for him to shout. The crowd immersed in utter mutism – The prince asked me to listen to the begging of the children. He will be, one day, a very merciful king, and in a sign of gratitude to the gods for giving me the victory and a son with already the mind of a ruler, I'll allow them to live, but let it be clear... - and then he turned to the Matsuoka heirs, holding each other and shaking as animals in the night - The instant they seem to share any intention to regain freedom, they'll meet again this crowd and this block.”

The little fallen princess smiled and bowed, but the boy remained silent. His tears stopped but he didn't seem happy if not for his sister, his jaw contracted and his teeth and fists clenched.

Haruka still remembered that look, gratitude filled with anger, humiliation and grace both fighting on the face of the boy. His hair shaken by the wind still kept him nailed to the prince's figure.

His mother's hand on his shoulders woke him from his thoughts. She didn't say anything, but smiled to him, sweetly.

It was her last smile before she died the following month.

He sighed, realizing how a day that starts insignificant like many others, may in the end hold two precious memories and...

“I refuse!”

… fine, one precious memory and the start of an excruciatingly exhausting lifestyle.

He turned, putting down the feather he was using to write, “Yes, Rin?”

“I won't do this, it's gross.”

“Just do it. - Haruka cut it short – It's your job.”

Rin pouted and threw the used clothes on Haruka's head, making him turn, suddenly.

A wide grin rose on his face, he looked so proud when he pissed his prince off... Haruka groaned and took the fabric off his head, sighing heavily, “You re the worst servant in history.”

“I know.” he grinned, sitting on Haruka's bed.

Many years had passed, and they were both knocking on the door of their nineteenth year of life, a date which Haruka was not really waiting for eagerly, since, by the rules of the kingdom, he would have been then completely able to ascend the throne if something had to happen to his father. No tutors, no older uncles to advise him, no regents. Just him and visirs that looked sly and wicked like cockroaches.

Rin grew up into a quite beautiful boy. More than just often, the little daughters of bakers or delicatessen sellers in the town, would leave flowers in his basket when he went to get something for the prince. “No wonder he was a royal too” they'd mumble to each other as he walked by. Haruka was not really willing to admit that that could have been the reason he lately didn't let him go around the city at all, forcing him to more maid-like tasks like cleaning his room, ordering his jewels or keeping him company during his more tedious lessons.

He had long hair the colour of blood and blossoming camellias, eyes of the same shade, a big, lean frame, given mostly to how much he loved to swim on the coast. They would runaway to do it together, in the night or in the days when the guards were lazy and tired, and returned after hours, exhausted and happy.

Those were the only moments during which Haruka felt free.

The prince that had cried just once, the people called him, but he was sad way more often. Sure, his sadness was not very visible, it was not worn on the face, but it was more a slowness, a lack of energy, like a lethargic state of mind. He lived in a golden cage, after all.

He hated the ministerial matters; govern duties, fighting wars, checking the taxes, taking decisions.

He even had to get betrothed to this princess whose name he had forgoten in the Kingdom beyond the sea... He asked his father to allow him, instead, to marry Gou, since she was a Matsuoka, an ancient family, and that the lands they conquered killing her's and Rin's fathers was still full of riots and people claiming they wanted them back; but the king refused strongly and without hope, “She lost her status and became a slave, you'll marry a princess who will grant us an important alliance instead of the calm in a region we can control with iron...” and then he suggested to stop letting his overemotional nature spoil politics.

Haruka frowned, if he was overemotional then what did that make Rin? A hurricane?

“Why don't you drop those papers and come on the bed with me?” Rin asked, opening and closing slowly his eyelids.

Haruka stared at him, blank, “Are you bored by any chance?”

“Yes, I am. - he rolled on the soft silky sheets, tempting him with a lewd smirk on his eyes – Entertain me, shall you?”

Haruka rose an eyebrow, “May I remind you you're not the noble here?”

“How to forget...”

Rin's words came out so bitter, so thin and tired, that Haruka felt suddenly guilty. He sucked his lips, slowly: he didn't mean to offend him, he just... he wanted to remind Rin of his place, to keep him controlled... he didn't want his father to realize how much freedom he always allowed to his servant.

Servant, ha!

Lover. The first, the only. He never felt any interest for anybody else: not the pretty girls at the king's harem, not the charming boys the high general sometimes brought to the palace in the night.

There was no other than Rin for him.

Rin made him feel like the sea: a wide, salty embrace, the world numbed and pushed far away, as they couldn't be caught by anybody.

Their moans, the movements under the waves, his high voice rising, the water getting deeper and darker, the utter sense of completeness. 

Rin was the sea.

But they lived immersed in the desert, drowning in sand and under the strict glance of his father.

He looked at Rin, hurt, holding himself, sniffing slightly. He cried a lot, Haruka found it bothersome at first, but then he just felt awe for how honest that boy could be about his feelings. How open, how sincere, how different from him.

It was hard to say sorry, so he just sat on the bed close to him and left a kiss on his tanned shoulders. Unwillingly, unconvinced, Rin turned, slowly, as if the offence went away but he couldn't let go of its shadow.

Their eyes met and Haruka closed his own.

It was his way to say he loved him.

Because to Haruka speaking and expressing himself was hard, because words were heavy like stones on his tongue and it was such an effort to translate what he felt - “you're water to me”, “you make me feel like my guts are pulled towards you”, “I see you and I want to break you and fill you and I'm not sure how to express it but when I sink my teeth into you I sink in your soul too a bit” it's what he would have said, but that would have made little to no sense to anyone.

Because they couldn't risk words, they couldn't risk the walls to hear – as long as it was sex, that would have been fine, surely not encouraged by the king, but Haruka could have said he wanted to screw his servant and he had the right to. But I love yous... if the high general heard those, he would have gotten Rin's head, if not also some of his other body parts, chopped. He would have thrown him in prison, accusing him of seducing the prince to claim the kingdom.

Because it was easier that way: no clear lines, no ties – Rin remembered chains too well, too long Haruka chocked in a cage. It was better to leave it unsaid and untold.

Rin caressed Haruka's nape, brought him closer to him and kissed his forehead. Haruka caught his lips in his own, pulling slightly.

He tasted like cinnamon. He was warm and dark.

Rin pushed closer, forcing Haruka to welcome his eager tongue, burning of need.

He held Haruka by the waist and brought him on him – his Haru, his prince, he tasted bittersweet, because he was his home and his humiliation and to him he owed life and slavery, to him he owed love and to him owed shame.

How does one love their own captor?

How does wrath turn to fever, grudge to love? He didn't know.

He couldn't pin point the moment when he stopped dropping Haruka's things in protest, when he stopped screaming in wrath, he couldn't say when he started to like Haruka's company, to think good of him. Dropping from prince to servant hadn't been easy for him, but worse was the idea of his sister, his Gou, reduced to one of the women to serve the king. 

Haruka sank into him, tongue in his mouth, pressing Rin against the mattress. The silk and the gold were soft and cold against his skin, as Rin moaned, welcoming Haruka's mouth on his neck and the hand on his aching groin.

“You're always so fast.” Haruka mocked him, caressing his cock as it got hard against his palm.

“You have that effect on me.” he fought him back, biting his lips, his strong pointy teeth leaving the prince's shoulder marked in purple and red.

Where laid the boundary between them too? Rin often wondered, finding they barely had one.

Haruka never whipped him. Never once.

Haruka never forced him to do anything, but he also refused every one of his tantrums, Haruka was firm and stable, Haruka was a mountain. His kisses, though, burned like fire.

Haruka was clam, misty, his eyes always looking far away. Rin hated it, how he had to labour for his attention, how he had to earn it – he was used to just getting it, to just be admired.

But not Haruka, with him that never worked.

And yet... yet, he knew, Haruka was always coming back to him. Didn't matter the time or anything going on, even when they fought, they'd return into each other's arms, as if pulled by an unconceivable, unexplainable force.

Rin suffocated a moan into Haruka's skin, biting it, as the prince caressed his erection.

Haruka's lips pressed harder on Rin's, his hand jerking off the throbbing cock, already foretasting entering into -

“Forgive me my intrusion...”

The two stiffed, frozen, exchanging a look of utter fear. Haruka looked at Rin's crimson eyes, hoping for him to understand.

He turned, “General...”

“Did knocking go out of fashion?” Rin bitched behind him.

Haruka was about to turn and scold him, but the general raised an eyebrow, “You sure allow your servants to be quite... unusually outspoken.”

“You must forgive me, my lord, but I do not fancy being interrupted while I please my prince.”

“It looked more like the opposite was happening...”

“Some men know how to give pleasure to their lovers and not only take it, for how extraordinary and astounding this might sound to you.”

The high general flinched, “Oh, I know how your family is an expert in this art.”

Haruka saw in a glimpse Rin clenching his fist and starting to move. He put a hand over his chest, keeping him behind, and turned to the general, cold-looking, “What did you barge into my private affairs for, general?”

“Your... father wishes to see you... urgently.”

“I'll go. - he glanced at Rin – I'll return soon.”

“If your majesty pleases, I might teach some manners to his impudent servant.”

“Your majesty doesn't please. - Haruka stated, firm, his eyes like dark ice – I do not fancy people touching my things, especially uncarefully, hurting them.”

“Without hurt, nobody learns.”

“I'll remember it when it comes to choosing your punishment, if you dare do something to my servant.”

Rin stared at his figure surprised. It was still hard, sometimes, to see how different Haru could be, when the general was involved: he'd become angry, spiteful even. He couldn't explain it fully. Normally Haruka would have just ignored anybody else, but with that man he just...

The prince left the room, without a word, just sharing an intense look to warn both of them not to start fighting again.

“He's just like his mother...” the general commented. His beard was tainted in white, his black eyes were hard as the stones at the bottom of caves.

He turned to Rin who felt his blood freeze, his muscles stiff. Anger burned in his clenched teeth, but he couldn't move. The general caressed his jaw, with a lewd grin on his face.

“You would have made such a nice eunuchus, it's a shame the prince is so fond of your assets. - he held a lock of Rin's hair between his fingers, caressing it, Rin felt like he was about to puke and burst – They are as beautiful as your mother's. Red like blood.”

“Don't name her...” he hissed, almost in a low roar.

“Why? - he scoffed – You're a slave, you are worth a bit more than the dates on that place and less than one of the stones incastonated in it. - he chuckled – If you slapped me, I'd take your hand or your life. I could even rape you and your precious little sister and it would be a noble against two slaves. You have no power, you're not a free man, let alone a prince.”

“I am prince's...”

“What? His toy? His pleasure tool, maybe. - he smiled, mocking – Oh, not that I underestimate the influence. You see it all around through the countries, courtesans getting their ways with moving kings back and forth, delicious girls moving their asses and changing the fates of wars... even you, you saved your own life once by seducing a prince.”

“I- we were kids, what is your...”

His hand went on his cheek, caressing Rin's hair. He stared at it disgusted. He wanted to move, to yell, but he felt stuck. Normally, he'd yell and scream, but there was something about that man that left him powerless and horrified.

Maybe it was the way he spoke about his mother.

Maybe it was remembering his sword cutting his father's guts in a blink.

Maybe it was the way he looked at him and Gou, with sick, sticky, glances.

“Don't tell me you didn't think about that. Don't tell me you wouldn't have sucked the father, if the son failed to be moved by your pretty crying eyes...”

Rin wrinkled his nose and moved away, “You're sick.”

“Probably. But you don't hold power at all. - he scoffed again – I wonder who'd give me more fun, you or your sister?”

“Keep your hands away from Gou!” he shouted, throwing himself at him, a fist in the air, blocked suddenly.

“You might have the shark teeth of the Matsuoka family, but you are no warrior, you are a whiny kid who got spared his life. You'll be a prisoner forever.”

Rin tried to move, his hand shaking, but he was overcome by the adult's man force.

His veins seemed close to crushing under the grip.

“You're just like your mother, I might as well give you the same fate.”

Rin's teeth clenched, as he struggled and murmured, wrathful, “You shouldn't even name her...”

“Would you fancy some gruesome details? - he mocked – Like after how many hours she gave up or how many men?”

“I think this is sufficient, general.”

He turned to the voice. As they saw the personal guard of the prince, they both shut up.

“Tachibana. - the general smiled – Me and... we were just speaking.”

“I'm sure so. - Makoto smiled, covering in honey the coldest voice – But Matsuoka doesn't seem to enjoy the conversation, so, for sure, a gentleman of your rank knows it'd be good mannered to interrupt it, before getting inopportune.”

Makoto Tachibana was the son of a fine noble family, merchants of spices. He earned his place by the prince by being a close friend and his father pleaded for him to join the private royal service instead of the war service.

The general left Rin's wrist and went out of the room, his cape fluttering in the wind.

Makoto stared at him, until he left, with a smile made of daggers, sharp and cold. His eyes were the colour of moss, but hid a strong-willed spirit with little to no roots to obtain what he wanted.

“Are you fine?” he turned to Rin, smiling again, worried.

“I... thank you...” he lowered his eyes.

Makoto came closer, “Did he hurt you?”

“Not physically...” he admitted, swallowing his fractured pride and the bitter shame.

“Haru... he doesn't see you as he said.”

“Does it matter how he sees me? - Rin raised his eyes – To everyone else in the world, I am a servant, a slave, a pariah.”

The guard poured both of them summer wine, while looking at him, almost entendered.

“You miss your pride...”

“I miss having one. - he choked back tears – I don't ... need to be a prince, but... a free man, a free man, at least, at last. - he sighed, sipping the wine, too sweet against his palate – For me and Gou... that would be enough.”

Makoto frowned, “Are you worried for your sister?”

“Wouldn't you, if she was yours? A slave can't marry, she belongs to a man who she might never love, and gets abandoned as she loses her teeth or her boobs fall flat.”

He glanced far away, at the waves of gold shimmered in golden pearls outside the window.

The desert. And beyond that, his home. A red shark, that was their symbol, but he barely could have been able to draw it again.

It all went away, it all was forgotten. Burned to the ground.

Burned as his father's corpse, burned as his palace.

Burned as Gou's wrists as the sun warmed the chains on their feet; she didn't cry, she just smiled and assured him she felt fine.

He was always the crybaby.

“I want to be free...” he whispered.

Makoto looked away, thinking of how ironic it would have been to talk about freedom with Haru, who couldn't free himself either. But he didn't speak. He just smiled, unable to object.

“He will be back soon. - he said, his pitch meant to comfort but a slight off vibe shaking his tongue, he truly did care for Haruka as an older brother would, with protection and understanding, having been his friend for years and for years his translator to a world Haruka didn't care to speak to – He should, at least.”

Rin nodded, in silence.

With him, Makoto was useless and they both knew it.

With him, Haruka spoke. He learnt to, with time.

It was almost natural, somehow, he noticed they clashed, they broke, they cried – well, Rin cried, mostly, Haruka shouted a bit and then stubbornly went mute; so he... he found him, he searched for an honest way to speak.

Haruka whose skin was pale despite the sun, who preferred the water to the sand, who strived for silence and lived in his mind – Haruka who escaped the world and words, searched for him.

He wondered if Makoto ever forgave him for that.

Maybe not, maybe yes, maybe to him there was no forgiveness to give to start with...

As the guard left the room, returning to the gates of the chambers, to control their safety, Rin remained alone, on the bed, an extinguished arousal in the groin, a longing bitterness left in his mouth, like a persistent flavour of failure. 

He didn't hold any power, he was right.

He was just a prisoner, a ward, a blessed pile of dirt, a walking corpse to whom was given the privilege to know slavery.

Sure, a sweet one... to Haru, his Haru. But what was love without the freedom to choose it, every day, relentlessly and never tiredly, or with burden and fatigue but still firmly, joyfully even?

A sweet slavery means little. Chains of love one should put on oneself. 

Rin looked at the desert, remembering his burnt palace – the gold and white walls were then probably stained in perpetual thick blackness, his lost home and how good and how far away it was in his mind. 

A small knock on the door.

“Did he scold you? Recommend another great war?”

“He is bothered by the size of our borders. - Haruka mumbled, dry – He wants to … - he swallowed, he hated to explain – Engage against the riders of the Hazuki tribe.”

“And what else? - Rin mocked, harsh – Will he make you marry their child? Or a princess from the other side of the sea?”

Haruka just looked at him, frowning, confused at the sudden change of his mood. He sighed, deciding it was about the general and went back to his bed, laying between the sheets, bending tenderly, welcoming him. He kissed softly Rin's neck.

Rin's muscles tensed, showing his Adam's apple and the chords and the covered veins.

Haruka's breath was warm and obscure, Rin felt his heartbeat getting drunk, sipped by those eager lips on his neck. 

He swallowed a prayer, unable to stop looking at that window.

“I won't see it ever again. - he continued, after an inquisitive hum – My home.”

Haruka's grip became tighter. Wasn't this his home? Why did Rin always long for somewhere else?

He missed their children’s games, their laughs in the garden, their first swimming days, when every little thing was easier. He would be laconic, even cold to Rin, at times – he liked him, obviously, but he could barely understand it, and his nature, so explosive, so intense, always storke Haru, hitting him, like a too strong current when it reaches the seashore in tempest and breaks against the rocks and shatters as dark turquoise glass.

They could feel it, burning on the back of their tongues, the tension of silence.

“I don't want to die a slave.”

Haruka's lips left his lover's skin, tenderly, slowly.

If he could speak his mind he would have said “I don't want to die a king” but he shut up, kept it to himself. Freedom, what a vain and silly wish they shared... they were both trapped.

He felt almost sick, nausea catching his throat.

Why was Rin so ungrateful? So greedy?

Was it not enough to be alive, to be living in gold and luxury, to have access to the best food and pleasure? He had more than the rest of the population of the country. And yet, he wanted more.

Greedy to no end.

Didn't he know he wanted it too? To be free? Finally free?

He stiffed, his jaw hardening, as he moved away from Rin.

“I'm tired.” he muttered.

Rin turned, angry, his eyes shining, watery in frustration. He was about to scream, but caught it back as he recognized in Haruka's eyes a cold rejection.

“Do as you fucking please!” he yelled, then as the prince lowered the look, left the room with a haste of wrath.

Haruka sighed.

“Melodramatic...”

But, as he touched the spot where Rin had been, the leftover warmth held his guts and its grip on his stomach made Haruka feel squished by loneliness. He was about to follow him, love unbound, and get him back.

Yet, he had not that type of ardour nor strength.

Rin was supposed to return to him at night, for cleaning, a bath and, well, going to bed, as always. Only half of it was for duty, it was also a pleasure- an intimacy, not only a rule. But Rin didn't come, stubborn, stubborn as a mule, as always.

He breathed in, laying on the bed; the room was dyed in the azure shades of darkness in the evening, the curtains gently ravished by the winds, all the gold seemed to have become a watery jet black void.

Freedom, as if.

He got awaken, shaken, at night – a distant cry, a shriek, acute like shattered glass, and then the hand of someone on his shoulder. Makoto.

“The king, my prince- the king...”

“The king what?”

“He has been strangled...”

Haruka fell silent. He didn't dare to speak.

Makoto lit up a candle and let it illuminate his terrified expression. He put his hand on Haruka's one and swallowed dryly, before whispering, “It was Gou to find him...”

“Gou?” he let out.

Why would she? Which reason would she have to? She was not nearly as hot-headed nor rebellious as her brother?

“A guard found her as she screamed. - he explained, quickly – More will be here soon, we're waiting for orders, my prince...”

The silence crumbled over them again, as they realized: nor prince, rather he was soon to be a king.

He didn't have any tutors, except a distant uncle – panic watered his eyes, panic more than grief.

“I'm sorry for your loss...” Makoto whispered.

But no, Haruka didn't feel at loss. He didn't lose anything.

He lost his king, as the whole country, but his father... his father was not between his veins and bones, not as his mother, and he rarely felt him close and not since years. He was supposed to be invested by pain, by grief, to cry – but he didn't cry.

He never cried, did he?

The prince who had cried only once. For his male lover.

But not for his mother, nor father dear, not for the king or anything a prince should be heartbroken over. What a pitiful royal he was going to be.

He just felt waves of bitterness drying his lips with the awful sour taste of what now he was sure he would have never had, the relationship they would have never built, the memories they would have never shared.

He lost his father a long time ago, that night he just lost the illusion that he could have changed things between them.

He stood, staring into Makoto's eyes, and went to his father's chambers, followed quickly.

When he arrived, he felt his knees failing him, weak, like cream, no bones in them. His father was lying with his back against the bedpost, a red purplish sign on his neck, some blood from scratches on his face, his tongue half out like a dog. He turned and on the floor there was Gou, chains on her wrists – which she never wore, after all those years – signs all over her skin of kisses and bites, the impression still of a hand over her tender hips and on one of her inner thighs. The azure veil she was wearing over her hips was stained.

Redder than her hair.

A red so dark and deep one could have mistaken it for freshly cut flesh.

Haruka swallowed, furrowing his eyebrows, unable to get it through his mind, to let the thought settle into his guts. Gou was crying, her eyes wide open, he breath irregular.

On his father's dick the same, shameful and inglorious, blood.

“I'm sorry...” she whispered, breathless, staring at him as if he were not even there for her to touch.

A guard shook her and made her stand. “What do we do with her, your grace?”

Haruka couldn't reply, he couldn't even think. God, he hated taking decisions under pressure. He hated it – he hated him, him, him, where was his mother? She would have known... what would have his father done? What would have a king done? She would have known, she would have.

Gou's wrists were trembling.

Blood streamed down her thighs in small rivers attached to the milky skin. Such little things, and yet, so big and bright at the sight.

He tasted blood once, from Rin. He drank it, greedily, and Rin moaned loudly to it. It tasted like iron and warmth.

He wondered if Gou's blood would have tasted the same or if violence would have made it revolting and cold.

“Call my uncle, for him to come as soon as possible to assist me here as my tutor. - Haru claimed, words heavy in his mouth – Clean my father's body. All of it, and dress him for the tomb. - he avoided looking at Gou's face – Take her to a cell for now, tomorrow we will... ask her about everything...”

The guard shook her and started to pull her behind him, she didn't dare protest.

“Don't hurt her.” Haruka shouted then, as if words just became again palpable and real in his mouth.

Makoto turned, as the guard left, and mumbled, half-voiced, “Should I wake up Rin?”

Haruka sucked his lips. He didn't feel ready to tell him the truth, he didn't feel ready to face him, to hear him yell, to see him cry and... his anger, his disappointment... he loved his sister above everything.

He wouldn't have slept many nights after that one.

Haruka sighed.

“Let him sleep.”

And he went to the desk, waiting for dawn, writing the lament for their now lost king, the quill leaving ink on his hands at every passage. The window facing the ocean of sand and the real one beyond that seemed so tempting.

He could have just gotten a camel, ran away, never come back.

Freedom, what a stupid thing.

Freedom...

He clenched his wrist and broke the ink-holder. Blue stained blue, blue overlapping blue, sadness over sadness and time over time – always the same chains.

His father died by the hands of a crying girl.

Sure, he scoffed at the thought; his mother would have found it quite ironic.

He chuckled darkly and directed himself to the prisoners’ tower.

Between the reek of urine, the thick darkness and the rats running through holes from one cold stone to the other, beyond rusty iron bars, he saw her. Her bloody hair ruffled, covering partly her face.

She had been treated unkindly, but didn’t seem more hurt than before.

As she saw him, she threw herself at the bars, crying “I'm sorry, prince, I'm so so sorry... - he would have liked to say all is fine but he couldn’t lie, and she broke more at his silence – Please, do not hurt my brother for I am the ungrateful one.”

“Why would I?”

“We're both prisoners... after what I did, you might rethink the privilege allowed to my family, and I...”

“Gou, we played together in the orange gardens as children. - he smiled at her – I even thought of marrying you.”

Her breath shook her ribcage, she looked about ready to puke or die in fever.

“I'm an ungrateful bitch, your grace, I do know...”

“You are none of those. You are a woman and far from ungrateful. - he blinked slowly, making an effort to speak, trying to remember all his lessons of social behaviour – What happened?”

Gou's voice ran dry. She lowered her eyes. Her lips quivered.

“Please, say to my brother it was all my fault...”

Haruka furrowed his eyebrows, “Why?”

She didn't look at him, “'Cause otherwise... he'd do something stupid, he'd live for revenge and burn his life and soul at once.”

She knew him well, after all.

He sighed, realizing how right she was.

“May I at least know...?”

“You'll have to have me killed anyway. - she murmured – A slave who kills a king... what do you think is our fate? - tears ran slow on her cheeks – I would have liked to see... one last time... the mosaic on the ceiling of my room as a child. It had waves of many blue shades.”

It most surely was burnt down.

But Haruka didn't say it, he didn't know why, but he felt it was better so.

“I... meant to stop, but... when I kept going, he looked in such panic... I'm not innocent, I could have stopped... that would have been understandable, I guess, against the law, but human and in human maybe worth of mercy, but I took elation in my power, I felt... strong. - she cried, a hand over her mouth trembled, then she whispered again – I don't think you know the feeling, Haruka, dear prince...The shark felt it’s teeth grow again. The new layer of teeth came and I could feel in my mouth the pleasure of power. - she caressed a stone, a rat coming close for food – I thought about my mother, if it makes any sense. He was fucking my cunt and I felt her crying and covering me with a veil, screaming to leave me untouched.”

Haruka flinched, stayed silent, biting his inner cheek.

The rat got a piece of fruit from Gou's dish and rushed away, in a wet corner.

“I didn't just want to stop him, I wanted to feel my mother's voice stop too, I wanted him to cum into me and the last thing he dirtied and broke to be his ruin, for once!” she shouted.

Her cry echoed, round and full, and all-over black.

“I'm... tired of people dying.” he whispered.

Gou turned to him, bewildered, drying her eyes.

It was enough, didn't she also think so? Weren't enough fountains of blood opened in the last years? Was he really supposed to crave another cut neck?

And Rin... Rin wouldn't have forgiven any of them: not Gou, not his father, not him. Not himself.

“What will we, then...?”

“I'll wait for my uncle. He should be here in two moons.”

“Haruka! - he turned as she called, her voice got weak – Tell him it was my fault.”

He nodded, more to calm her than meaning it and left the prisons with the first brittle orange dawn slipping through the walls.

He felt thin, against the closed door of the tower, resting his back against the moist oak wood- he felt thin and weak.

What should have he said to Rin? Which words to find?

Gou would have never passed a trial: right or wrong, guilty only of the killing or of the whole aggression, justified by fear and defence or not, it mattered little to nothing. She was a slave and his father was the king. He had the right to any woman or man he set his eyes on.

A thought crossed his mind: how lionesses were far more aggressive than their male counterparts and brought home the result.

Rin wanted to kill Haru’s father for years, he knew, he always did, but Gou got the job done in a night.

Haruka found a slight admiration for her bravery.

He was way more static than those tempestuous, fearless siblings.

He smiled bitterly.

Rin would have died if something had to happen to her...

When he arrived in his room, he found Makoto and Rin, animatedly discussing or, better said, Rin shouting and Makoto trying to calm him down uselessly; both turned to him, one in wrath, the other in panic. In a moment, he had Rin's hands around his collar scarf, pulling him close, roaring.

His pointy teeth shone. His knuckles were white.

“What did you do to her?”

Not him. You.

Haruka swallowed, “She is in the prison, nothing happened.”

“Nothing? She is going to be executed!”

He forced Rin's hand to let go and stared at him, firmly.

Rin lowered his look, bitterly and deeply scarred by Haruka's coldness, his voice reduced to a hissed whisper.

“...you don't plan to do anything?”

It's not like he could do a lot. If he decided to spare her, his uncle, the whole people, might decide he was weak to the wish of the Matsuoka or that he wanted his own father dead, which meant in both cases his uncle on the throne and a revolution, maybe with all of them killed.

He didn't want Gou to die, obviously. Nor Rin to hate him forever...

What was he supposed to do?

A thick sadness brewed in his stomach and heart.

Rin fell impatient, hurt, and left the room with a disgusted look aimed at Haruka and kicking a vase on the ground, Makoto running to catch it.

Haruka sighed – he contemplated following Rin, but it would have led nowhere. When he was that angry, following him and trying to discuss had no better result that both of them bickering and yelling, which was usually good, but he didn't have the energy for that then.

How was he supposed to change all of it?

“Haru...”

“I need to sleep.” he murmured, low-pitched.

Resting in the middle of the day was uneasy at best, especially with the burden of a solution to come as he would have woken up. The heavy clouds of the heart swarmed over his head like crows over a carcass. Doubt feasted, feeding on his nightmares, dirtying its fangs with his fears.

He moved all of the morning, restless, trying to find in the sleep a moment of peace just to lose it again, to the image of Rin leaving or his head rolling into the sand leaving a river of red behind.

Gou was the same, but blood gushed from her groin too...

His father's laugh was opening in the sand, his teeth red with the blood, empty holes opening in the dunes.

It swallowed it all and Haru woke up panting.

He turned, finding Rin next to him, curled up, hiding in the blanket, furrowed eyebrows and tense fingers. Haruka looked at him and kissed his forehead slowly and delicately.

He was snoring slowly, like a small animal.

Haruka laid in bed again, right in front of Rin, staring at him closely and painting on his lips a small smile.

He would have liked to touch him, but the fear of disturbing his sleep was too persistent, too strong and shook, like a spark, through his veins and nerves.

He closed his eyes and opened them again, slowly.  _I love you_ , he would have liked to say it out loud, in front of a thousand guards and royals, but that was the worst time.

Even Rin would have probably not appreciated it, he was most definitely still angry at him.

… yet, he came to his bed.

His lips the colours of tender roses in the garden tempted Haruka, but he forced himself to hold back.

The female was more lethal than the male. Rin's breath filled his lungs, his skinny ribcage. He was far taller than Gou and yet...

Haruka closed his eyes, hid his face in Rin's chest – he had the scent of sandalwood and candied oranges – and waited to fall asleep again, this time peacefully, in his arms, while Rin held him tight unconsciously.

Haruka hummed, reaching for a dream, slowly and steadily as the tides on the horizon. Rin's breath was thick with deep sleep, “I love you...” he whispered.

Why did the gods grant him such a deep need of a person he couldn't have?

Why couldn't they both be free, like the wandering people, who crossed the desert on camels and never belon...

He rushed to the tower of the prison, an orange lit torch in his hands, walking through the dark walls and shifting quickly to avoid the guards. As he found Gou, his plan still hadn’t taken shape, but he could not wait anymore. She was curled up next to the corner of the door – the same position as his brother, he thought – and, in a shiver, he almost shouted, almost too loud, “I'll … I'll take us out.”

She stood up, tense and white skinned as a ghost or marble in the pale moonlight, “Will you?”

He threw here two scalpels, strong and sharp, one big and the other small, and a long nail.

“Listen well. - he murmured, when she came close – Move away the stones from the right wall, tonight, from two to three in the night, when all the guards get their suppers at the temple. Be quick. There is an empty column there, leads to the wheel, you'll have then to swim, swim up, until you reach the surface, understood?”

He spoke quickly, his voice hoarse, as if trying to put all his thoughts into words was a pain. But he had no choice.

Gou nodded, slowly.

“We'll be there, Rin and I, at the end of the wheel.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“I... I don't want him to lose you. - he couldn't bear it, not survive it, he sucked his lips unable to say it out loud – Be quiet and quick.”

Her hands trembled, holding the scalpels. She gave him a smile sharp as a needle and tired – her eyes filled with a veil of wetness and fear.

He would have liked to comfort her, but he found no words, his hands moved ghastly over the bars, until he went away; the first thing to do at that point was convincing Rin to follow him, with little to no details, hoping that he'd listen and not behave stubbornly.

He returned to him room, finding him still sleepy, yet coming awake, snuggling under the soft puffy blankets, rolling under them. His toned arms peeking from out of the blanket betrayed the angelic picture, giving it a sensual light. He kept making small bothered sounds, like a restless, balky, obstinate horse.

Haru caressed his cheek and Rin calmed, slowly, against it. He opened his eyes, meeting his prince, intensely staring at him.

Rin couldn't manage to smile. Pain condensed in his throat, dense and hard to swallow.

“...you came into my bed.”

“Maybe I missed you! - he shouted – And then?”

“Tonight.”

“Tonight what?” he frowned, still defensive.

Haruka sucked his lips and mumbled, “We become free.”

Rin trembled, he hesitated, his glance wandering on Haruka's figure, wondering. He shivered, skin burning in doubt and joy and fear.

Free.

A smile opened on his lips, with him just barely noticing.

Tears met his cheeks.

“Free.”

Haruka nodded, resting his forehead against Rin's, and the red-haired put his arms around his neck, hugging him and keeping him close.

Rin moved closer, ready to kiss him, taking Haruka's lips in his own and savouring them, eagerly, almost aggressive in his hunger and haste.

He sat in Haruka's lap, pushing him on the bed while the prince let his hands run over his shoulders, caressing them.

Rin rushed to take off Haruka's clothes, throwing them on the bed, kissing his neck, biting it, in a fury of need and love. Haruka helped him by taking off the lover's vest, he placed his hands on Rin's hips and waist, clenching in awe.

So soft, so beautiful.

Haruka moved his leg slowly, bringing his knee under Rin's crotch and rubbing it – Rin swallowed a moan, letting out a small grunt. Haruka's eyes shone, he was not the type to grin but satisfaction boiled in his veins, melting with arousal.

Rin's pleasure made him stiff and voracious.

Rin licked Haruka's shoulder, contouring its veins and muscles and then sank his teeth into it, biting. Haruka chocked a moan and clenched tighter, bruising Rin's hips, while rubbing his knee more and more. He could feel Rin's loins start to move against it, following the motion.

“Greedy.” he whispered in Rin's ear, while licking his jaw.

Rin bit him deeper and Haruka bucketed into his crotch, his erection knocking against Rin's ballsack making the red-head loll his eyes to the back.

Rin couldn't contain himself and left Haruka's shoulder, arching his back and letting out breathy moans as his cock pressed against the fine silk of the pants, wetting them.

“You are the one overdoing it.” Rin let out, biting his bottom lip, still quivering for the shivers shaking him.

Haruka kissed Rin's chest, licked the rosy nipples, tasting them against his tongue.

His hands followed Rin's lines – ribs, bones, muscles – they untied Rin’s pants and let his erection free. Haru's fingers wrapped it and started to pump it.

His voice melted in a flow of moans- Haru's touch was warm, restless, his eyes still staring at him with unmuted adoration.

Deep blue eyes burning like fire as they caressed his skin with furtive glances.

How many years had they spent in silence before falling together?

Rin almost chuckled, remembering – his awkward teenage wrath for not understanding his own feelings, Haruka's lethargic moods for his confused heart. They were close but it took so much to be true.

Rin kissed Haruka's lips, sucking his taste, claiming his mouth with his own.

Haruka pulled him closer, his tongue insinuating into Rin, marking it in desire, while fingers ran over his skin, their pulses becoming one.

“You're slow...” Rin whispered, pushing Haruka against the bed and moving both their pants down completely.

Haruka bit his lips in a shy smile, but with a cocky raise of eyebrows.

He could feel Rin's mouth wrap his shaft and swallow it, the whole length immersed in the hottest softness, the silk of his lustful mouth sucking him dry. Haruka suffocated a groan, pushing Rin's head more against it, moving him slightly forcefully, needing to feel the back of his palate against his tip.

A deformed 'greedy' came out of Rin's lips while his tongue caressed the erection, making pleasure pool and boil in Haruka's veins.

Need pushed through his spine, like sparks, setting his bones on fire.

Rin sucked harder, then left the shaft, focusing only on the head of the cock, circling it, licking its desperate, needy tip, taking just that between his lips and tormenting it. Haruka grunted and arched, bucketing his hips in vain.

Rin chuckled, licked his lips in pride and then passed his teeth on Haruka's whole erection, slowly, with delicate brush, making sure to not be too hard but to make him stiff, thrilled by the possible pain, ignited by the desire. As he reached the head, he took it in, his smoldring tongue enveloping it, tickling and torturing it with a lust sweeter than paradise.

The prince came in his mouth, emptying himself against the tongue.

Rin came down to kiss him, sharing the pearly liquid. Haruka pressed Rin's nape closer, filling his mouth with his tongue and pushing stronger into him, keeping him by the wrist.

He wouldn't have lost him.

Not his Rin. Not for anything in the world.

Rin smiled in the kiss, enthusiastic, interrupting it just to share another right after, in quick breaths, in dense haste.

Haruka was soon hard again and Rin turned, taking the oil from behind them – narcissus and olive oil, they said it was wedding love oil, but they always used only that one.

Rin took the prince's hand in his own and kissed it, before preparing himself, as usual. Haruka rested, admiring him – at the pale light of their lamps, he looked like a beautiful ruby on which the shaded light of a candle danced and fractured in thousand shimmering shadows.

Haruka caressed his lover's iliac crest, gently, his knuckles cold and bony against the tenderest of skin bits.

He held him, while Rin lowered himself on Haruka's erection, penetrating himself completely in one, deep, chocked moan. He bent and arched, trying to adjust, as he could feel the pleasure of being tensed and stretched by Haruka's cock inside him. He shivered, trembling.

It felt good, overwhelmingly good, even just to have him in, but he had no intention to finish it off so easily. He moved his hips, riding, before slowly, working a rhythm, then frenetically, quicker and quicker, panting.

Haruka held his wrists and started moving, thrusting into him deeper and deeper. Rin shouted in pleasure as Haruka found his sweet spot and hammered into it relentlessly.

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling, words truncated and burnt inside his mouth by pleasure, his tongue sticking out.

Haruka held him tighter, thrusting harder, his dick throbbing and pulsating inside the tight hot asshole mercilessly. He wished he could show that Rin to the girls in town – the one that melted in moans, weak in the knees for his dick slammed deep inside him, the one who belonged to him and him alone, free man or slave. 

Rin let his head roll back, staring at the ceiling, making the effort to move and still ride Haruka, despite the arousal of the thrusts making it harder to keep a position instead of just scream and let pleasure come. He twisted his belly, moved his muscles, working on Haruka's pleasure, contracting his body to get tighter around him.

Haruka clenched his teeth, swallowing.

God, it felt too good... Rin could get so competitive about control even while being fucked, it was hard not to take it as one of their swim races. As he saw a little smirk rise on his face, he decided to try to make it go away, making it melt in a string of convulsed, needy moans.

He pushed in completely, slamming against Rin's sweet switch, brushing against it over and over at every rock.

Rin quivered, he bit his lips, shook, called his name – one, two, three, four times in a single sigh, breathless, eager. He fell over him but Haruka didn't stop. 

He wanted to mark him deeper.

He banged into the restlessly into his prostate, until Rin, on his chest, strength-less, was moaning and leaving small drops of saliva on his chest, faint words and pleas rolling between them. 

Haruka pulled his face closer and trapped Rin in a deep kiss, while he thrusted more. Rin saw white, his spine tormented by sparks of raw pleasure, while Haruka came into him, against his filled walls, reddened and still burning.

Haruka caressed his lover's hair.

“Tonight...” Rin smiled, snuggling against his chest.

Haruka, though, suddenly felt terrified. He couldn't have explained why. It was an uncomfortable sensation, a flash.

It left him bitter and wondering, but he decided not to speak and just kiss Rin's head and hair.

In the night, sand seemed azure as the waves of the sea. And that's where they were headed.

Haruka got them two horses: a white Arabic mare for himself – as hot-headed as calm, quicker in picking up bad habits than good ones, his father used to say - and a proud, fiery barb for Rin. The horses neighed darkly, hitting the sand with their nails, frustrated.

As Gou came out of the well, all wet and dirty, most of all afraid, Rin put on her his cloak, put her on the horse with him and the three of them rushed out of the city, before trumpets would announce the disappearance of the criminal.

She smiled and cried, hidden against her brother's chest, unable to fully metabolize they were free, free as birds in the sky.

Also to Haruka it was hard to believe: it just looked to him like when him and Rin ran away for a day at the seaside, until the days passed, moons alternating to sun or rain, and it was all of them, always alone, trying to find their way. Going simply to the sea would have been quick but imprudent, so Rin suggested reaching the old trident of land that melted their countries, cross it and reach the sea form the old kingdom of Matsuoka, which, being full of rebellion and hard to control, would have probably not heard yet of them and, they figured, they would have met less control on the coast.

Gou ate little to nothing and drank less, despite her brother's insistency to get refreshed.

“Worrying won't help.” figured Haruka, mumbling to himself.

She kept biting her nails and scratching her skin in anxiety and after two nights out, they had still barely rested. Rin and him also didn't kiss nor share a moment of intimacy, which, sure, was not so important, but left the prince feeling bitter, overlooked even.

Rin seemed to stare at the horizon,”Let's go to Berda. - he suggested, charming and confident as he was more and more becoming with time – The city of fountains and pink marbles surely will be a good rest.”

Haruka nodded, silently thinking about how much of a better king Rin would have been than him: he liked people, he spoke to them, he had a way with them. Sure he was emotional and temperamental, but... he knew how to make people trust him.

He had a way to stir emotions as if they were fresh waters.

Haruka found himself knowing he was not going to be a good king many times during the years; Rin was much fitter for that role, and he always found a certain burden in not being of the natural disposition necessary for that destiny, until he realized, subtly, he didn't want that one.

He didn't want to be king.

And for years he let currents push him and he adapted.

He did many times.

He never fought against those tides, he was not like Rin.

But then, then as a miracle came in front of them, that chance: to be themselves and not anymore a slave and a prince, two roles they never wanted. 

He looked at Rin, proud and shining on his fiery horse, and smiled secretly. They were free, in the wide open desert with the wind in their face to shake and elevate their souls.

The sun called for them.

Haruka could almost smell the sea, for how distant, in his heart.

He would have liked to buy a boat, with Rin, and to navigate with him for all the years to come...

Arriving to Breda, Haruka still couldn't send away from his heart and shoulders that wishful thinking, hopeful and green, for solitude of shared quiet love.

People crowded in the square, as they crossed it, some whispered – Gou hid her hair in a veil, but some of Rin's red locks escaped from under his turban due to how long they were and fell gently on his neck.

An old lady came close to them to look at him. Her face went pale, her hands trembled and she ran away, almost frightened, almost ecstatic.

“We're attracting too much attention.” Haruka pointed out, dry, but not with a note of jealousy and resentment.

Rin turned the horse, smirking, “They're admiring the southern beauties.”

Haruka glared, trying to seem cold, but Rin's grin grew wider. God, he knew how to tease him...

“Let's find a place to sleep in.”

“I'm sure we can ask some of those pretty girls...”

Gou looked at them both and sighed. How men became so sour and provocative with each other just because they wished for contact was beyond her understanding. She imagined she could have left them some intimacy, but if she stated she knew, her brother would have probably panicked about it, stuttered and got a heartache.

From the crowd, the old lady came back and spoke to them in words they couldn't grasp. Gou recognized it as an old dialect of their language, but the meaning was washed away by age passed.

“Kisumi” was all that Rin grasped and his face lit.

“Kisumi! Is he here?”

Haruka squinted his eyes, wondering, but Rin didn't even look at him. A shard of coldness pierced his chest.

Rin started talking to the woman with some difficulty, but still apparently without sweating, and in a couple of minutes he smiled, victorious, “Follow me.”

Haruka hated how his will was progressively weakened in front of Rin's strong personality.

Sure, he loved it... at times. But he was there left with the bitter aftertaste of wondering how much Rin needed him, after all.

They were together those years also due to his condition.

...maybe, now, as a free man he wouldn't have wanted it anymore...

The houses of Berda were all in pink marbles, all shining under the sun like river pearls, and their pink looked like the sand got richer, brighter, warmer. The city was founded over an old temple of the ancient goddess of water, Berd, from which it took its name, still before the Nanase's dynasty even started to walk and way before the first Matsuokas came from the sea region; due to the abundance of water, the city was always able to resist summers and always was considered too important for traffic, merchants and host armies, for it to be destroyed by wars, in fact, noble families outside the walls often paid much gold to protect the city from a disaster. 

With time, as the cult for Berd failed, the city came to honour the new god of waters, Shein, but did not change its name – some said out of the stubborn nature of the country people, some due to the fact that Shein was an oriental god, imposed, and therefore less beloved even in the devoted city, up to the point, sometimes, grannies would still spill a 'she' in their prayers. Shein, though, favoured the Matsuokas, for the luck one could say it brought to a fallen family, and they always took care of showering Berda with the most precious silver and pearls, building all over the city fountains to celebrate the abundance of water. With time, as a bank rose in the city, Shigino, the family who owned it, stated also the high priest should be an inherited role and so established themselves, through centuries, with the silent approval of the family of the red shark emblem.

Of Kisumi III Rin had vague memories – he received the blessing of beautiful peachy coloured hair, sum of the red from his family and the blonde of the Shigino – and had a mellow, kind personality, cheerful, somewhat observant, but never unamiable in its behaviour.

It was, though, a third-grade cousin, due to – gods bless them – arranged marriages, and, therefore, to be considered a faithful ally, at least as it came to asking for a bed and a bath.

Obviously, Rin couldn't wait to see a friendly face, more than for him for Gou, who spent the past days grooming sadly, with her eyes dull and tired, at times crying as she thought he slept. He couldn't bring himself to comfort her decently, but he knew a last bit of their family and their past might have been a sweet tonic, the sip she needed in the march through desert.

The palace was smaller than Haruka's smaller residence, but shone in pink and silver, with a big  emblem: the pelican letting drops fall from its beak. Many columns held the whole big, posset structure and details of sculpted wines and mythological creatures in the marble made it look more precious than anything they had ever seen.

Inside, the palace had a long hall with a huge fountain with lotus flowers and in the fresh transparent waters, red and white fish danced together. All around the doors drapes of silk and satin were hanging and a distant music welcomed them.

They tied the horses and then proceeded, Rin before all of them, Haruka last, staring at the ground, moving slowly, his head lowered and defeated.

Rin didn't need him at all.

As they entered the throne room, they met Kisumi and Haruka realized he heard about him from his father – about his scandalous sexual conduct and how far too generous he was with his people. To him, he just looked like a boy, roughly his age, on a pile of gold with the expression of a child.

He clapped his hands, thrilled.

“Cousins! - he rushed to hug them and kissed their foreheads – Cousins of time past, I've heard legends about you being alive, captive, but now...! It's true. And so should be then... - his eyes shone as he looked at Rin – You did it?”

“I did.” Gou said, firmly.

Kisumi seemed full of admiration, he opened his mouth and nodded, passing a thumb over his full lips. He was somewhat impressed, but didn't speak, rather his violet eyes fell on Haruka and glimmered in interest.

“And you should be?”

“Rin's lover. - Gou spoke again, making both the involved boys turn, shocked – He helped us, now we need to escape.”

“I see...” Kisumi chirped.

“Can we hope for your hospitality?”

A tender smile, “But surely. Blood is the water of our bodies and as sacred as the water in our mouths. - he paused – Though, I must say, I ignore your future plans...”

“The sea.” Rin smiled.

“The sea?”

His eyes gleamed, he looked at Haruka quickly, gave him a smile that chocked his heartbeat, and claimed, “We want to live near the sea, alone and free.”

Kisumi laughed loudly, clapping his hands, amused.

“Isn't it romantic?”

“I wouldn't say so.” A voice commented, from behind a column, in the dark.

“Sousuke, do not destroy this dreamy moment. - he fakely scolded him, then smiled at the group – You must excuse my knight, he is fairly practical.”

The man looked dark and tall as if a forest in the night took a human form. His arms were big and his glance was like iron. He was more a sword than a man.

Haruka stared at him questioning.

“I was faithful to the Matsuokas, my whole family was. - Sousuke commented, coming closer, he came to Rin and kneeled – Why going away, to the far lands, when now it's given us the occasion to restore your power? People wait for your return.”

Rin laughed.

Haruka turned, surprised, curious.

“Oh. - he put a hand on Sousuke's shoulder – The first year I was a prisoner, I dreamt of nothing else. - then he looked at Haruka and smiled, sweetly, as if moved – But I learnt there are far more important things than our role. A prince or a slave are both caged, tied up by duties they loathe. I aim to my dreams, my heartbeat and my actions to be mine and not imposed.”

Sousuke stood up, his armour shimmering in the sun coming from the windows and clanking in metallic harsh sounds, and turned to the Nanase prince, almost roaring, furious in his silence and wrath.

“Did you convince him? Were you the one to move his soul into this disastrous decision?”

Haruka backed off slowly, more surprised by the ferocity than scared, letting the word sink deep into his chest.

Did he damage Rin's future?

Rin shouted, holding Sousuke's arm, “He saved me, he pleaded for my life! - then smiled – And saved my heart too.”

“From what? Glory?”

“Grudge.”

He was so firm and confident, that Sousuke stopped, while Kisumi rubbed his hands and claimed, “I'm so sorry, dear cousin, he has a fire in his heart.”

“Haru too. - Rin cut off – But he doesn't threaten people like that.”

Gou interrupted them, “Can we return to Aylanna?”

Her chest trembled and her eyes were big with hope and fear.

Kisumi reflected on that before answering, while smiling, “Rest for now, we will serve dinner, and then, as the moon rises up, we will go there, if you all please so.”

Rin hesitated.

He missed his home, his palace, but... that would have meant a day more before reaching the sea, a day more before being with Haruka in peace, a day before... forgetting it all.

He would have remembered the screams and the torches and the pain.

He felt suddenly a weight lowering his wrists. Like chains.

Gou held him, “Please...” she whispered.

Haruka nodded, remembering what she said in that cell, how desperate and weak she looked like.

“So it will be!” Kisumi clapped his hands, proud.

Some servants led Rin and Haruka to a room, while Gou went to sleep separately, insisting before on visiting the moon fountain they said brought good luck to pregnant women and travellers. Rin didn't question it, but Haruka observed her disappearing in the corridor, wondering how truly good could she feel, doomed in insecurities and running away.

By then, his uncle was probably reaching the capital, while the generals were wondering if he fled or got killed, if he wanted his father to die and organized his murder, or if he was kidnapped as a prisoner. Regardless, he was confident the doubt wouldn't have tormented his uncle.

The room assigned was smaller than his own, but covered in shimmering mother of pearl and the floor was made of mirroring glass. He sat on the bed, on the sheet of pink silk enlaced with silver, and sighed, tired.

Rin seemed to be quite sleepy, but, instead, smiled, came close to him and kissed Haru's neck, slowly, tenderly, leaving small bitemarks.

Haruka stiffed and then relaxed against the warm tongue and the strong teeth.

He suffocated a melted moan.

“What's wrong? - Rin rubbed his nose on his neck – Offended?”

“No...”

“Then?” he tried to convince him a bit, leaving small kisses on his skin.

“They want you to return to rule.”

“I don't care about that.”

“You are a natural-born leader. - Haruka shouted, angry, why even angry? He should have been quiet and nice and try to get Rin to stay... would Rin have gone away then? If he stopped liking him? He could have now... they were no more bound by duty, no more forced together, Rin didn't need him and he would have been a better king than him and... his voice dropped, his throat clenched and his breath condensed heavy as clay in his lungs, he just whispered – You'd be good at it.”

Rin smiled, looking at Haruka confidently. His eyes shone in pride and kindness.

“What I want the most is spending my years with you... swimming and taking the sun and seeing the world...”

“Even as a common man?”

“It's a blessing.” Rin reminded him with a quick kiss on the lips.

Haruka looked stubbornly down, clenching his fists. Rin never wanted to be common.

He was special, after all, how to blame him?

Rin lifted Haruka's chin, staring at him, he gave him a wide smile and squinted his eyes softly. His voice sounded like warm honey.

“You were really afraid of me leaving, weren't you?”

“... why shouldn't you?”

Haruka stiffed; he didn't notice he spoke out loud. He thought it was alone in his mind again, he turned towards Rin to apologize, but just found his lips against his own, peeking and brushing gently.

“Because of you.”

Haruka threw Rin on the sheets and started assaulting his neck with kisses. Rin smiled, laughed even, tenderly, without any ferocity, rather with his heart so light, his head felt full of air and joy.

Haruka's lips were sweet as a dream, his eyes shone like water under the sun.

Their hands entwined, while Haruka went down on Rin, licking him, kissing his cock and stroking it to hardness. The red-haired put a hand in front of his mouth, hiding breathy moans.

He felt torn down, he felt his body screaming for Haruka from the inside.

His blood burnt, ignited by his caresses.

Haruka's tongue slowly circled Rin's cockhead, he sucked it, greedily, until he saw Rin was close enough to relax, then his tongue slipped on his balls, brushing them slightly – Rin squirmed, his muscles as leaves in the wind.

His skin seemed so sensitive, writhing at every slight touch, while Haruka went on his crack and, cupped the ass between his hands, he proceeded to paint the pink flesh of the hole.

Rin arched his back and feet, caught off-guard, absolutely amazed by the sensation of Haruka's warm tongue there. He buried the hand more on his lips, trying uselessly to shut up, but letting out an acute moan as soon as he could feel Haruka's tongue circling it closer and closer and then entering in his cave.

Haruka's tongue was quick, wet, caressed his walls, leaving his hole feeling like it were on fire. Sparks crushed in his nerves, he tried not to move but soon enough his hips were pushing towards Haruka, searching for him, claiming him deeper.

Yet, it was barely enough. It was far too short for him to be satisfied.

He glanced quickly at Haruka and gained him to add two fingers at the tongue without stopping his movements. Damn, had he decided to drive him insane?

Haruka's fingers went to find his prostate, rubbing it slowly, while the tongue was still stimulating the entrance, making it more and more eager and smooth.

Rin bit his hand, the teeth leaving small red drops on the skin. His eyes lolled back in pleasure as Haruka's movement became faster, his fingertips literally slamming against the sweet spot ruthlessly, attacking him until Rin's knees gave out, his toes tensed and curled and his voice became a wanton liquid prayer for more.

As Haruka entered, Rin's arms were around his neck, pulling him closer; the red-haired hid his face against the chest, tearing up slightly, out of frustration and desire, the pressure building in his guts at every thrust. Haruka's lenght filling him, stretching his body, claiming space.

Freedom to belong: that was the gift Haruka gave him that day.

Rin took his face between his hands and kissed him deeply, his tongue stealing his breath and heartbeat, their movements synchronizing, thrusts and tongue, in a dance of moans and slams. 

He belonged to Haruka, to his Haru, and he to him – now it was true, without chains, held together by something stronger than any iron or law.

Haru smiled into the kiss, “Mine...”

Two fallen princes, no princes, no slaves, two slaves but just to each other's Love.

Haruka opened Rin's legs, taking more space, and held them by the knees, looking straight down on Rin's throbbing erection and the part where they connected and melted, his reddish needy hole, getting tight with arousal.

In a proud grin, Haruka hastened the pace, quicker, starting to aim again at Rin's prostate, leaving him defenceless from the pleasure, forcing him to come immediately – and, all gods, it felt so good having Rin's guts clenching his cock to keep him there, greedily, as if they had to suck it.

He banged into his hole again and again, each rock scooting Rin slightly and leaving him writhing and breathless. He bit his lips, moans rolling anyway out, one after the other, lustful and drenched.

Rin's nails sank into Haruka's flesh, drawing trenches of pain and pleasure.

Haruka sank deeper, thrust harder, feeling elation in the sudden sensation to be truly filling Rin beyond his limit.

Rin's eyes shimmered; pleasure shone in them, heat collecting in his cock, now painfully stiff, about to burst.

He shout, his voice hoarse and dry, as Haruka's cockhead grazed against his spot over and over, hitting it, and Haruka bent his legs, widening them, pushing far into him. There was something weirdly arousing, he couldn’t have been able to explain it, in being fucked like that, like one would do to a wedded more than a simple lover, more than an harem boy.

He came, pearly and dense, with a dark full moan, followed by a faster Haruka, no more worried of his pleasure and focused on his own, carelessly intense, rougher. More of an animal than a collected prince, for once.

Rin caressed his cheek and smiled, panting.

“Yours...”

Haruka nodded, slowly, in silence.

A victorious grin widened on Rin's full lips, which he licked, quickly, biting then the corner. He raised his eyebrows, inviting.

“We have time before dinner... - his finger drew circles on Haruka's chest – I suggest we take this time for something nicer and more... satisfactory than mere rest.”

Haruka hid his face slightly, his ears stained in a pale red, before obeying Rin's advice, eagerly and undoubtedly very wilful.

At dinner, the table was decorated by many pieces of crystals and quartz, of the pale pink of a tender dawn, while on it, many dishes alternated: lamb with minty cream, fish of fresh waters served with a bright yellow fruit and brown nuts, a fat poultry with a sauce of honey, onions and citrus, all of them served with white tea with mint leaves and berries and a generous portion of wine imported from far away cities.

Kisumi had a girl prepare for them bowls full of water and rose petals to clean their hands from one treat to the next.

He laughed as if he found everything overly endearing and Haruka was stating to meditate how to stab him.

Sousuke, on the other hand, was sitting next to Gou as she told him about the king slaughter and their travel.

“You might be pregnant. - he observed, flat-voiced – Pregnant with the heir of their throne.”

“Haruka's uncle will be a fine king.” she cut him short.

“You have no ambitions over that kingdom? No wish for revenge?”

“Wasn't it revenge that made me a slave?” she laughed bitterly, sipping the red sweet summer wine.

Sousuke seemed surprised, thrilled, “You speak more like a man than a girl.”

“I speak like myself.”

“You speak like a queen. - he paused – I wish I could say the same of him...”

Gou lowered her voice, “You won't make him your king. His soul is made of sea, not of gold.”

“Then what would you advise? He is our chance...”

Haruka frowned and, upon noticing it, Rin held his hand, squeezed it gently and glanced at him to have his eye focus on him.

He was unsure about the travel, exploring the old city, but he couldn't help thinking – in his mind, like a mantra, he kept thinking about freedom and all that was lost. His thoughts were focused on Rin, Rin's destiny and which role was he supposed to take in it; sure he claimed not to want a kingdom, but what was going to be of them then?

He remembered his mother's eyes when she smiled at him that last time.

Did he save a  life or buy one that day?

As they went outside, they mounted white camels, abandoning their horses in the stables, and Kisumi gave them cloaks of the colour of the night, for them to melt and not attract glimpses of thieves.  They entered through a passage from a cave.

Rin had blurred memories of it, barely recalling if it was used for emergencies centuries before, but his father did not consider it necessary anymore and got it instead walled inside by stone bricks. The corridor of the passage was dark and wet, they tied the camels halfway through it and the ground was wet as the ground near rivers; Kisumi explained to them quickly that it was an ancient well due to a river running a bit under the surface.

Haruka's mind wandered to Makoto, how afraid he would have been to enter into the cave, as he feared darkness and ghosts...

Was he ready for a life without his friend? Was he ready to cross oceans just with Rin and counting on him not to disappear or choose somebody else in the process? Before Rin came into his life, he was the brave one, he was seen by Makoto as a true courageous prince and it never crossed his mind he was not truly adapt to the role.

Meeting Rin shook the cards of the game, bringing Chaos.

He could never punish him, for how angry Rin made him, he could never yell at him or scold him, because it was always strong in his soul the awareness that it was just the case that decided who had to be the fallen one. It had nothing to do with valour or worth.

They were kids, whose parents played a gruesome game.

They walked through the cave, deeper and deeper, Sousuke behind him, holding a torch and glaring at him as if his eyes were daggers - not that they were much less sharp - and his hands going to protect Gou from time to time, as if, between them, she weren't the one less in need of protection. Rin advanced before everyone, Kisumi right after. They seemed so confident, so sure, even when moving in thick darkness. 

Haruka sighed, following them silently.

In a moment, in front of them, they met a wall and Kisumi pointed out to Sousuke some heavy rocks to move, disclosing a passage not much further away from what looked as the family burials. Rin clenched his fists and Haruka didn't comment but wished his hand were held instead... he felt close to losing him.

The empty feeling gathered in his guts, like arousal pools on the verge of release.

Around them, it was suddenly more luminous, even if not enough for figures to be clearly distinguished as soon as one left the faithful circle of light created by Sousuke's torch. They were in the huge crypts of the family, where the Matsuoka founds their burials since the first age of their reign.

The inhumantion and the successive decoration of the body by painting it in red were observed for all the members since centuries, except Rin's parents and the other family members slaughtered at the last day of battle. They looked like such a small number compared to all the corpses in the room, but Haruka realized how heavy that exception must have been to the siblings.

Rin clenched his teeth, his sweat icy, Gou held onto the dark man's arm, seeking a mute comfort he was not sure how to give.

All in all, Haruka stared at the huge, vast ceiling of the tall and dark room, light barely filtering from high windows on top, and a strong scent of moss and candles - "Some people still light up big cups of oil and beewax for them, they are faithful, they are grieving..." Kisumi explained - but Rin avoided to reply, leaving his comment unanswered and their doubts floating in the thin air.

After the crypt, they walked up a series of small stairs in the shape of a shell's curl twirling apparently to infinity and walked there until outside the sun rose, creeping from the little stones and failing at keeping them warm.

They arrived at a big iron door, which Gou recognized, for playing so much on the other side of it, caressing it and wondering what was on the other side- Rin looked at her with pity and tenderness.

The past was a heavy burden, he always knew and he always found it hard to forget.

He wished at least she could have, with time, be blessed by ignorance.

"You shall open it, if that's your wish." Kisumi suggested.

"Could I refuse, after we walked so much to get here?"

"Of course you could, but then one should wonder why you did such an effort for something you did not want.."

Rin shook his head and noticed Haruka's annoyed expression - his prince was so cute, clearly irritated by Kisumi's cheerful manipulation.

He pushed a finger inside the lock of the door and chocked on a scream as a hidden dagger stabbed it - he took it out, slowly, and the door opened with a clunk and a tired huff.

Haruka blinked, confused.

"Only Matsuokas can open this door. - Rin said - It's blood magic: if my blood wasn’t of the family, they would have chopped my finger instead of simply getting some drops and from the walls around us swords would have pierced us."

Haruka turned, noticing only then thin holes in the stones, long and thin, enough for a blade to be hidden in it.

He shut up about the magic - his tribe never trusted its use, and preferred to simply pray to the gods, in particular Yeur god of the gold and Merhes goddess of the merchants, and always looked in doubt when it came to the direct use of spells, as it was said that it's like playing with the gods and it never ends well for one who is arrogant and forgets their human limits.

Blood magic, in particular, was considered dark, for it asks for the soul of those who cast it.

The door opened slowly, the burden of the iron weighting it down and, as they took a step forward, they met the big hall, a ricular huge room with eight small cupolas terminating in a majestic one at the centre of the dimension of four of them. All around the base of the major cupola was a ring of windows, letting the light flash in and brighten the whole room. The walls were the colours of water, fresh and kind, all was covered in blue pieces of mosaic - the sea room - so his father used to call it, was stormed by decorations in all the finest metals in the lands. 

At the centre of the major cupola was a throne, the red throne, all made of porfidian marble and rubies, and behind it was the silk tapestry with the emblem of Matsuokas and the story of their dynasty, now laying, burnt and cut in many shreds, lying at the feet of the throne, it too chopped in half and burnt too black for most of its portion, rubies reduced to coal or taken away, sometimes left broken. 

The rest of the room was filled with skeletons, bones one over the other, armours with rotting flesh inside, now home for mice, and broken columns, decapitated, naked from the old gold decorating their busts. The smaller cupolas used to have chairs made with gold and silver, but now there was none left, just an empty jet chokehold black space.

Brightness died, extinguished was the light.

He could imagine the children crying, Rin's mother screaming – death and pain and horror. He could almost feel it, sticky and dreadful, dirtying his skin and making his soul rot.

He could.

All that death, all that destruction; for whom? For what?

He bought a life – he was an accomplice, not a saviour, Rin must have hated him, loathed him like the same chains they put on him and Gou and his mother and people. They took away everything from him.

A shiver sparkled through his spine as a painful current.

Haruka turned to Rin but found out he was looking at him, not with a hit of hate or resentment.

He held his hand and kissed it softly.

"I love you..." he whispered.

Haruka's heart skipped a beat as he swallowed bitterness out of fear and doubt.

He couldn't bring himself to ask out clearly, so Rin pulled him by the side, while Gou and the other two spoke about the situation.

"You should be close to her right now..." Haruka mumbled.

"What's upsetting you?"

Direct, as always.

Haruka sighed, avoided his strong look, "It's me who made it..."

"It's not you, sins don't transfer."

"...and yet your home was destroyed."

"My father was also at war! - he half-yelled to shake Haruka out of that feeling, holding his shoulders, it felt good to be held, to have his hands on him... Rin's eyes went soft - And this is not my home."

"It's not?"

"You are my home. - he smiled - Not this city, not the other, not any maybe will be. You. You are my place."

Rin's hold was warm and tender. He was always so abrupt, so strong in his gestures and movement.

And yet his heart was so delicate.

Haruka kissed him, slowly, tasting his soft lips, letting their lips and tongue embrace and entwine, slowly, as two threads of silk in embroidery.

"I love you too..." he whispered, finally, on the brink of their just parted lips.

Haruka sucked his lips, feeling a weird sensation: his throat clocked, his eyes seemed heavy and warm, his cheek burnt, his breath was stiff and yet labouring.

Rin smiled, his eyes shining and kissed him deeply, tongue taking space, his hands on Haruka's cheek. He could feel Rin's tongue invading him greedily.

Haruka smiled, crying.

He threw his hands around Rin's neck and cried harder as their tears of joy mixed.

 

////

 

Rin looked at the horizon again, holding Haruka from behind as they shared a horse.

Kisumi gave them bowls and bottles of water and nuts, Sousuke just stared at them strict as if he couldn't understand them.

Gou kissed her brother's hands and he stared at her tenderly.

“Are you sure?” his voice was hoarse in hurt and doubt.

She looked so small in his memory.

She curled her lips, “Yes. - she promised – This is my home.”

Kisumi smiled, “I promise I'll protect her and so will the many people still faithful to your family.”

“If not a kingdom, I'll rebuild this city. - Gou kissed her brother's hands again and then Haruka's – Return, one day, to see it shining.”

Rin smiled, proud, “We will, we will hear of it from the other side of the sea.”

Haruka nodded and pulled the reins, making the horse stand on two legs and then start moving towards the sand, cutting through it.

Rin waved and then held onto Haruka, tighter. He smiled.

“How far will the sea be?”

“One day... - Haruka replied, staring at their goal – We'll be there soon.”

Rin held his lover's clothes.

In the air, the balsamic salt, the free open sky, the fresh fruits and the scorching, beautiful gold of the huge desert.

He smiled, proud.

“I feel like we are already there...”

Already free, rushing through life, breathless and in love, with the horse at maximum speed; they were waves in an ocean of gold, in an ocean of a whole life in front of them, both free and even.

 

**end**

 


End file.
